Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman on Monday said he is preparing legislation that would ban gay athletes from joining the National Football League.

Burkman in a statement said he has garnered political support for the bill, though his statement didn’t mention any specific lawmakers who are behind it.

“We are losing our decency as a nation,” Burkman said in a statement. “Imagine your son being forced to shower with a gay man. That’s a horrifying prospect for every mom in the country. What in the world has this nation come to?”

Burkman said he came up with the idea after college football star Michael Sam publicly revealed he is gay a few weeks ago. If drafted, Sam would be the first openly gay player in the NFL.

(…)

Burkman was not available to speak with The Hill but urged Congress to act in his statement.

“If the NFL has no morals and no values, then Congress must find values for it,” Burkman said.

Burkman serves as founder and president of his own lobbying firm, Burkman Associates. He has also worked as of counsel at law firm Holland & Knight. In the 1990s, he served as counsel to then-Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.).

Burkman’s firm, JM Burkman & Associates, signed 70 new clients last year, the most of any K Street firm, a recent review by The Hillfound.

WASHINGTON — A Republican lobbyist is preparing legislation that would ban gay athletes from playing in the National Football League, a move he says is necessary to prevent American society from sliding into indecency.

Jack Burkman, the CEO of Burkman LLC, said Monday that he would push Republican lawmakers to support the measure, which he put together after college football star Michael Sam announced that he is gay. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Burkman insisted that five members of the House of Representatives and one senator are interested in co-sponsoring the bill, and that those numbers would rise to 36 and five, respectively, within three weeks. Notably, he declined to name any of the lawmakers in question.

The absence of any actual details — from the language of the bill to the names of potential supporters — gave the announcement the unmistakable whiff of a publicity stunt. Burkman’s own public relations firm broke the news of the legislation. Beyond his motive, however, is a larger question: Why would Burkman even bother? Sam’s announcement was met with widespread support. Why should Congress create a conflict where, for the most part, one doesn’t exist?

Even Burkman concedes that conservatives like himself are supposed to find it abhorrent when the government tells a private business how to conduct its affairs.

“However,” he added, “there are times when that is trumped for reason of great urgency or necessity. And I think this is it, because I see the society sliding in the wrong direction.”

“I felt that if the NFL doesn’t have any morals, and people like [Commissioner] Roger Goodell, who are just go-along-get-along guys, just want to appease advertisers, appease corporate America and all that stuff,” he said, “I figured, well, it is time for conservatives in Congress to step in and define morality for them.”

But the slope is slippery and filled with intolerance. Burkman expressed particular concern about the possibility of a gay man disrupting the delicate equilibrium of a locker room. Does that extend to congressional locker rooms? Should openly gay politicians be prohibited from serving in Congress since, after all, lawmakers share gyms there?

“That is up to Congress,” Burkman said.

Would Burkman be fine with openly gay men playing in the NFL if they used separate bathrooms from straight players?

“That would be a start,” he said.

And here’s Burkman discussing this initiative:

When I first read about this at The Raw Story, I thought it was something from a parody website. But, no, this is apparently a real thing. How such a law could possibly be Constitutional I do not know.

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About Doug MataconisDoug holds a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May, 2010 and also writes at Below The Beltway.
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Comments

That’s the GOP for you. They run on low taxes and limited government and then legislate anti abortion and culture war too. What’s interesting is that the people who vote for them on tax issues are constantly surprised when they do the culture war stuff. Maybe they should try not voting for Republicans?

Leaving out the whole gay issue for a moment- if the NFL doesn’t tell this guy where to stick it for telling them how to run their business, I’d be very surprised. If he thinks for one minute the NFL will put up with Congress writing a specific law addressed to them and them alone affecting their lifeblood (the ability to draft players), he’s got another thing coming. Regardless of their personal stances on the issue, the NFL is Money and Money doesn’t do restrictions.

Back to the topic at hand- way to waste public money on a totally indefensible piece of BS, dude! Nice retirement income for him, a huge bill for the rest of us – both from the government’s defense bills AND from the NFL’s lawsuits and lawyer fees (since we all know they’re not paying a dime if they can pass it along). Aiming for the Grifter Hall of Fame, that one….

Gee, I’m a mom with a 20-something son and I can tell you that worrying about who he showered with in the NFL locker room would be the last thing on my mind, if, that is, he got signed to the NFL. I’d be concerned with drugs; fast cars; too much money too fast; and, oh, the NFL part – I’d be much happier if he was showering with gay NHL teammates.

Am I the only one reading this who asks “WHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION IS THE AMENDMENT THAT ALLOWS LOBBYIST TO WRITE BILLS FOR CONGRESS” ????????????
Probably , it has been going on for years, but now, for the first time,here is the proof, STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH, that legislators are so in bed with Lobbyists that they even let them develop bills to serve their own Special Interest & pass them off as their own.
Morals & Values are SUBJECTIVE, not OBJECTIVE, so to name them as a basis for new law strikes at the very core of the constitution, it interferes with the separation of Church and State, the whole concept of Free Enterprise, and most importantly the concept that we are all CREATED EQUAL.

Imagine your son being forced to shower with a gay man. That’s a horrifying prospect for every mom in the country.

Armchair psychology time: this guy grew up hearing that gays are evil from his psychotic, controlling mother. He developed severe anxiety over his own homosexual tendencies, which he struggled with especially in the locker room in school. His father loved football and he learned that playing pro ball is the pinnacle of existence. An openly gay player joining the league has triggered deep seated issues in the man, and he has decided to embark on a crusade. He’s overcompensating to a ridiculous degree.

There’s no mistake that we live in an age of moral relativism. Alasdair MacIntyre, in my mind, eloquently summed up the problem in After Virtue. The language of morality has been reduced down to one man’s opinion versus another’s. It has been made subjective.

The reaction of Our Moral Guardians, like this dude, has been entirely incorrect and improper regarding the problem. When moral language becomes subjective, you don’t attempt to force it down others’ throats through legislation. You should, instead, seek to clarify your own morals and attempt to be an exemplar of them. You should spread them culturally, starting in your own community and working out from there. A bottom-up approach.

Going the route they went inevitably made them moral lawyers advocating petty rules that don’t have much justification aside from fitting into a conceptual framework that worked for nomadic tribes five thousand years ago. This isn’t the description of a winning argument. So now they find themselves pushing (even if facetiously, since this really does look like a publicity stunt) a dumb rule for a sport principally about guys clobbering each other really hard. That’s sad. It’s not even reprehensible anymore. It’s too pitiful.

Not to interrupt anyone’s Republican bashing, but this has precisely zero chance of getting anywhere in Congress. I doubt it will even come up in committee. I’m dubious it will even get more than a couple of sponsors from really safe districts. This gay is way out on the fringe of the GOP*. I think Stein is right: this is a publicity stunt. And … it seems to have worked.

(* after posting, realized that I meant to say “guy” in that sentence, but “gay” works so much better on so many levels, I’m leaving the mis-spelling in.)

Sorta. But Obamacare repeal actually came up for a vote and (I think) passed the House. This won’t even get that far. The GOP had votes to repeal Obamacare because they wanted to prove they oppose Obamacare. Large segments of the GOP are backing away from gay issues as fast as they can.

This is just like the Uganda headline. It fits the anti-socon narrative, so even though it’s not true, you’re willing to roll with it. Does it matter that this is one guy, who isn’t a congressman? Nope. It’s the GOP for Stonetools. It’s what he’s invested in believing the entire GOP is, so it doesn’t matter whether it speaks to the GOP as a whole.

Except that this isn’t a headline and is one guy’s expressed opinion. We all form narratives. Believe me, if eco-terrorism was on the rise (like social conservatism’s moment in the spotlight for the last decade), you’d get similar generalizations about the left.

Also, we can’t effectively communicate with each other if we’re constantly having to define our terms in each conversation for clarity’s sake. (Something ernie likes to do whenever someone associates him with a particular viewpoint, if I recall correctly.) So communication is bound to have reductionist terms in it. I doubt stonetools thinks the entire GOP thinks like this, but he reckons enough do to make a comfortable simplification. Same thing with reynolds and others saying the GOP are racists.

There are problems with comfortable simplification, but we’re not going to get past those. Calling them out when they’re misapplied is a good thing to do, but it can’t be the only thing you do.

@Tillman: In this case, it literally is a headline. The first word is “GOP”. There’s no such thing as a GOP lobbyist, in that officials in the political parties don’t lobby for legislation (as far as I know, they can’t). But Doug makes the jump from Burkman’s resume to “GOP lobbyist”, and Stone makes the jump from “GOP lobbyist” to “that’s the GOP for you”. Anjin says, well, the truth in this particular case doesn’t matter, as long as the GOP changes its position on gay marriage then we’ll stop spreading this particular story.

“You are a slow learner, Winston.”
“How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”
“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”

Sort of like black athletes were once banned. Every hear of the Negro Leagues? Jackie Robinson? Se habla history?

Jim Crow was about segregating a minority from the mainstream of American life. It was about limiting their rights and ability to participate in normal day-to-day activities that the rest of us take for granted.

This is exactly what the right is trying to perpetuate and even increase with gays & lesbians. Basically, the right wants bigots to be able to go back to the days before the Greensboro Four. Before the Stonewall “riot”

Even you are not too dim to understand this. Either make better arguments, or tattoo “I am an idiot” to your forehead so people will not have to wait for you to speak…

@anjin-san: The laws of physics or something say that you can post an infinite number of comments that are nearly-related to the question. I’d have to respond an infinite number of times saying “that’s not really what we were talking about”. Or, I could just hope that the reader will notice.

@Pinky: I don’t know about Burkman, but a few years ago the Republicans were forcing the lobbying shops to hire Republicans. Tom Delay as Republican Whip was providing short lists off approved candidates for any open slots. In the aftermath, it’s fair to call most of them Republican lobbyists. WIKI “K street project”.

You are talking about how we can pretend that Jack Burkman is not a GOP insider, and how we can pretend that socons are not dedicated to maintaining second class citizenship in America for people they don’t like.

Having lived in the bay area for over half a century, I’ve know a lot of gay men. I’m fairly certain that I’ve showered with gay men, after sports practice in school, at the gym, after a round of golf, whatever. I don’t care, and neither does my mother.

I’ve had gay men flirt with me, and I have had gay men hit on me in no uncertain terms.

It’s never bothered me. It never made me feel like anyone involved had low morals. It never threatened my manhood or made a mockery of my marriage.

One thing has remained fairly constant. Scratch a homophobe, and you will find a man who is deeply unsure of his own masculinity, or you will find latency and self-loathing. Sometimes both.

Right. All the GOP crazy in on the fringe. Like Limbaugh saying Democrats would support the AZ hate law if they thought Muslims were behind it. Or like him saying that Brewer was being pressured by the “homosexual lobby” (aka the Chamber of Commerce), or like Fox commentators saying that slavery was dying on it’s own and there was no need for the Civil War.